ing, and desired to be buried as near him as might be,
perhaps as thinking they should meet the sooner, that he
might ask him forgiveness in another world.” He left no
children or heirs, and his brother John succeeded him
as king. (John is best known as the signer of the Magna
Carta in 1215.)
Richard only spent six months of his 10 years as
king of England in the country he reigned over. His
prowess and courage in battle earned him the nickname
Coeur de Lion (heart of the lion), but the training at his
mother’s court is revealed in a verse Richard composed
during his German captivity:
No one will tell me the cause of my sorrow
Why they have made me a prisoner here.
Wherefore with dolour I now make my moan;
Friends had I many but help have I none.
Shameful it is that they leave me to ransom,
To languish here two winters long.A statue of Richard, “Cœur De Lion,” stands in front
of Parliament in London, his right arm lifting a sword
into the air.
References: Stubbs, William, ed., Chronicles and Memori-
als of the Reign of Richard I.... 2 vols. (London: Long-
man, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, 1864–65);
Archer, Thomas Andrew, The Crusade of Richard I,
1189–92 (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1889); Hamp-
den, John, Crusader King: The Adventures of Richard the
Lionheart on Crusade, Taken from a Chronicle of the Time
(London: Edmund Ward, Publishers, 1956); Gillingham,
John, Richard I (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
Press, 2002); “Richard I Massacres Prisoners after Taking
Acre, 2–20 August 1191,” in Eyewitness to History, edited
by John Carey (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1987), 35–37.
Richard III (1452–1485) English king
Richard III was born on 2 October 1452 in Fotherin-
gay Castle, Northamptonshire, England, the 11th child
of Richard, duke of York, and Cicely Neville. When he
was eight years old, his father was killed at the Battle of
Wakefield (30 December 1460), which occurred dur-
ing the Wars of the Roses (1455–85). The king at that
time, Henry VI, was a weak ruler who had acceded to
the throne as a baby and had been controlled by a suc-
cession of power-hungry barons, of whom the stron-
gest was Richard Neville, earl of WarWick. Although
Warwick had originally supported Henry VI—the Lan-
castrian cause—he had taken offense at the king’s favor-
ing other barons and decided to support the duke of
York’s claim to act as regent—the Yorkist cause. When
the duke of York was killed in battle in 1460, Warwick
supported his son Edward, Richard’s brother, to become
king in 1461.
On his brother’s accession as King Edward IV,
Richard was given the title duke of Gloucester. When
Edward married Elizabeth Woodville in 1464, Warwick,
who had wanted Edward to marry a French princess,
was infuriated and withdrew his support, determin-
ing to restore the deposed Henry VI to the throne.
Richard followed his brother when he fled to France
in 1470, but came back with him the following year,
and they defeated Warwick at the battle of Barnet (14
April 1471), where Warwick was killed. The Lancastri-
ans raised another army, but the Yorkists defeated them
again at Tewkesbury (4 May 1471). Edward, now firmly
in control, imprisoned Henry VI in the Tower of Lon-
don, where he was killed the same month. There has
been much speculation that Richard was involved in the
king’s death, and it is recorded that he was in the Tower
on 22 May 1471 when Henry was killed.
Richard was granted lands and official honors by
his brother the king, and in 1472 he married his cousin
Anne Neville, younger daughter of Warwick the King-
maker, and thus became master of much of Warwick’s
vast wealth. Another brother of Richard’s, the duke of
Clarence, had married Warwick’s elder daughter, and
having to share the Neville wealth led to Clarence’s en-
mity, which grew so bitter that he began to plot against
the senior brother, Edward IV. For this, Clarence was
impeached and put to death in the Tower on 18 Febru-
ary 1478. (It is now believed that Richard had nothing
to do with Clarence’s death.)
Richard acted as chief adviser to Edward IV and,
on his behalf, invaded Scotland in an attempt to stop the
Scots’ border incursions; he defeated them at Edinburgh
in July 1482. When Edward died on 9 April 1483, he
left his two young sons in the care of Richard as regent.
Richard named himself as England’s lord high protector
and had the two princes put in the Tower of London
for safety. He then set about reducing the power of the
Woodville family, who had gained much wealth and au-
thority from Elizabeth Woodville’s marriage to Edward RichARD iii